


'She looked like her mother'

by UnicornOfTheSun



Series: Drabble Series that is Yet to be Named [1]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon), Tangled (2010)
Genre: Also wouldn't Raps be against it?, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bad Parent Gothel (Disney), Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, I think to much about this stuff, Nightmares, Rapunzel Needs a Hug (Disney), Rapunzel doesn't know how to socialise and it's sad, Trauma, Varian Needs a Hug (Disney), Varian is smart, Why did Fred put a kid in jail?, and a detective apparently, and therapy, like really woman!, she's mentioned a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:54:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24895738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnicornOfTheSun/pseuds/UnicornOfTheSun
Summary: After the group gets back from chasing their destiny no one is in a mood to talk about what just happened. So now Varian has to put those smarts to good use and figure out what happened to Cassie and what drove her to betray Rapunzel.
Relationships: Cassandra & Rapunzel (Disney: Tangled), Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider & Varian, Eugene Fitzherbert | Flynn Rider/Rapunzel, Rapunzel & Varian (Disney)
Series: Drabble Series that is Yet to be Named [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1802776
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	'She looked like her mother'

**Author's Note:**

> This has been stuck in my head for a while. Actually this fandom has been stuck in my head for a while and I basically inhale all the fanfic so I was like why not contribute myself. Plus I need to put my ideas and ramblings someplace other than talking my family to death.
> 
> Sorry if it sucks, my first time writing fanfic so there's that.

Needless to say, there wasn’t much time to talk after what happened when the gang returned, Varian wasn’t even sure he _wanted_ to talk to everyone.

He had to talk to his dad and explain everything he had done in the year and a bit since he had been encased in amber. He told his dad his side and what he had done, and how he felt about it. Quirin was a good listener for once. (And a great hugger.)

But that took up all of his evening and quite a bit of the night, so there wasn’t much time to talk to anyone else. The Princess had left to give them time to talk after triple checking that Varian wasn’t hurt. She kept staring at the burnt remains of his gloves and then checking his hand for injury. Once she was satisfied, she left and gave him time to talk to his dad.

After his dad said he was proud of him and kept insisting even after all he had done, it was smooth sailing from there. That was the easy one.

He had talked to The Queen enough while he was in prison - they had made up months ago. He was pretty sure everything was sunshine and rainbows with Rapunzel (when was it not? Actually don’t answer that) But he still hadn’t made up with Cass and he couldn’t find her anywhere. He knew it was a sensitive subject for everyone and not just him - everyone would freeze up and shift the conversation whenever her name was brought up.

So in conclusion, no one wanted to talk about Cass, and no one was telling him anything. It hurt a little but Varian assumed it was a bit like when people asked about his mother.

It was frustrating not knowing as much as everyone else did, not knowing what had happened the year he was stuck in that prison cell wasting away. He was used to always being the smartest, being an alchemist and all. Well, he was just going to have to put those skills to good use, do some science, and collect the data.

It wasn’t snooping, or stalking, or being a creep, it was just getting to the bottom of something that people weren’t willing to tell him. You know, he could have easily been very bitter about it, but he wasn’t. Instead, he was following a lead.

You see Varian knew The Princess had nightmares, _everyone_ knew The Princess had nightmares - the screams were hard to ignore early in the morning and he had been her friend long enough. What he also knew was that Eugene would ‘sneak’ into her room early in the morning and they would talk about it. (It was quite adorable if a bit sad)So he decided a good place to start was to listen in on a few of those.

One morning when he didn’t even need to set his alarm because her screams woke him up anyway, he left on his way to his alchemy lab that was set up in the castle. He just happened to talk a tiny detour to walk past Eugene’s room where they were talking.

“It’s like the old ones,” Raps explained softly. “You know, where I would see _that_ over and over again.” Eugene shifted on the bed and grumbled something with words Varian was pretty sure he wasn’t supposed to know.

“But this time it was her?” He asked.

“Yeah, breaking that bridge,” she said. Varian was working with the assumption that ‘her’ was Cass. He didn’t know what the old nightmares were about but these seemed to be about Cass cutting a bridge, that didn’t seem that bad… (Hey! She woke the whole castle up at an ungodly hour for someone cutting a bridge!)

“What made you wake up screaming?” Eugene asked.

“When I realised she looked like her mother.”

Neither of them spoke after that

Now he was super confused. He wouldn’t let that get him down because that usually meant he was on the verge of a breakthrough and he just had to do a little bit more digging.

The question (or questions) was: why did Cass break that bridge? Was it tied to why she isn’t here? Who is Cass’ mom and why did the mention of her silence two of the most talkative people Varian knew.

Before _everything_ Varian liked to think he was close with Cassie. They had exchanged stories about growing up without a mother - hey wait a second! Cassandra was adopted by the captain of the guards and he wasn’t married. Maybe she had a mother before everything? But then the math didn’t line up. Cass had been adopted when she was four and _everyone_ knew The Princess was kidnapped just a few days after she was born - the same year Cass turned four. So that left them meeting her on the road.

Team awesome had been getting quite close in recent weeks, they worked on Varian’s experiments and sometimes Eugene even joined him when he wanted to go visit Angry and Catalina. So he figured that would be a good place to start.

“Hey Eugene,” he said after a pause of silence.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever met Cass’ mom?” He asked. The reaction was nothing like what he had calculated and anticipated. Normally when Varian asked about things that happened on their journey Eugene was one of the only people to give him a semi-straight answer, even if it was a long speech with lots of acting and dramatic reenactments. But this time he stopped dead in his tracks.

“How did you?” He sputtered. Then he winced and gripped his side. “Yeah, I have, once, the worst day of my life.” They left it at that, but Eugene just wasn’t the same for a few hours.

Varian knew Eugene could be dramatic - he still had a bit of that old Flynn Rider in him. But he didn’t think ‘the worst day of my life’ was being dramatic. Tears were welling up in his eyes, Eugene never cried in front of anyone but The Princess. For that reason, he determined that it would probably be best if he left it at that.

His next clue as to what had happened with Cassie came from Raps herself. She had come to him one evening with a mortified look on her face. She was carrying a very colourful sand timer.

“Hey, Varian!” She called. He looked up from his workbench and his eyes latched onto her overly ‘I’m totally ok what are you even talking about’ smile.

“What did you do?” He deadpanned. The smile slipped off her face and she glanced at the timer.

“I may have done something not super great and gone back in time and maybe sort of changed the way Eugene thinks and now I don’t know what to do!”

Varian blinked at her and took the clearly distressing object away.

“I mean I thought it was fine at first but now I’m wondering if it’s permanent. He was talking to me about my sister and how she betrayed me. Ugh, why can’t I stop thinking about her as my sister? Anyway, and then I got slightly grumpy that he wanted me to accept it and I may have gone back in time,” she rambled. It continued for a little while after that, but all Varian got out of it was that Rapunzel had a sister, and she was _guilty_ about it.

That was news to him.

So he decided to ask her parents. He was helping them regain their memories because you know _the Saporia thing._ You would think he would know if The King and Queen had another kid, and why would she be adopted by the captain of the guards.

He asked The Queen. “Did you have any other kids apart from Rapunzel?” It was a logical question and he was actually wondering why they _didn’t -_ the kingdom would be in complete chaos if Rapunzel didn’t return home. The Queen shook her head.

“No, I couldn’t. Even with the help of the sundrop, after Rapunzel, I was left unable to bear children.”

“What about before?”

“We tried, but no, she really was a miracle baby.” She smiled, but there was a hidden sadness to it. “Oh look I remembered some more,” she said, looking at him gratefully. But he paused the session because her mind was elsewhere with sadder times.

Next, he had to build up the courage to ask The King. But halfway through he realised he was looking at it all wrong. Eugene had met The King and Queen many many times and he presumed that none of those were the worst day of his life. So he gave up with that idea and waited.

He wasn’t waiting long before another crazy event happened. It wasn’t the nicest event, he saw his dad being encased in amber again and again and again. His nightmares had stopped about half a year into being in prison but now they were coming back at full force and he was pretty sure they came from those new red rocks that were showing up.

In the end, he ended up helping Rapunzel save Corona once again. Man, it was a good feeling to be on the saving side instead of destroying once again. They had a heart to heart and she told him about all her greatest fear of Cassie taking over Corona and leaving it in ruins.

“She’s conquered the kingdom, destroyed it forever,” she said. Her eyes were haunted, distant, confirming that indeed Cass has betrayed them. She said that they both had trouble talking about what scares them and he remembers how she goes silent even with Eugene, and she trusts him like no one else. Then he remembers ‘she looked like her mother’ and he can see those unsaid words in her eyes now.

Later when they were celebrating, Rapunzel was doing that thing where she smiled a bit too much. Varian walked up to her and smiled reassuringly. It was nice knowing they had opened up to each other.

“Anything else you couldn’t say while we were busy saving the kingdom?” He asked. She stiffened slightly but nodded. “She looked like her mother,” he said for her. Raps’ mouth opened slightly, like a fish.

“How did you know?” She asked quietly. He shrugged.

“You said it before.”

“Oh.” She paused. “Well can you blame me for being afraid of that-that _woman?_ ” The sense of knowing what was going on quickly slipped from his grasp once again. There was no turning back now, this discussion was long overdue.

“Was she the reason Cass betrayed you?” Not quite knowing who _she_ was.

“We haven’t really had the most time to talk since, you know, but that's what she said at the time. She said it was my fault that her mother abandoned her. But she also thought I wasn’t being the best friend, and fair, I may have said some things like calling her a sister when in hindsight that was pretty stupid, and I suppose I didn’t really let her talk, plus there was the hand burn situation and-”

“Princess, your mumble rambling again,” Varian said. She cringed but stopped talking.

“Oh, heh, suppose I am. What I mean to say is it’s happened twice now,” she shot a meaningful glance at him. “I’m scared that I'll lose her as a friend as I said earlier. But also that I do this to all my friends, that I just don’t know _how_ to have friends.”

He let her words sink in for a moment, aware of every second that she got more nervous and started pulling and twisting her hair or mumbling things to Pascal.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said eventually. “Besides how is it you fault that her mom left her, you were like a baby?” he said, doing the math in his head again.

“You don’t really get much of a say in being kidnapped,” she agreed, a bitter chuckle escaping.

That's when the final piece snapped into place and he thinks he understood another small part of what happened to the group while they were out chasing destinies. Now it’s his turn to open his mouth in a slight ‘oh’.

“Thanks for talking Varian,” she said, wrapping him in a bear hug, in which he realises he nearly as tall as her now. “I’ll be here to talk if ever you need, I pro-, I missed you,” she said, finally releasing him from the hug.

So then a few days later, after he witnessed Cass’s misunderstandings on the steps next to the demanitus device and has tried to reason with her as someone whose been in the same position, but instead ends up nearly falling to his death and getting smacked around by the black rocks.

He now understood a _lot_ more of what he didn’t, not only about the Cassandra situation but now about the Spire, the Dark Kingdom, the mind trap and Eugene's lineage - all from helping out on a mission to help stop Cass and worryingly the ghost that helped with the incantation. He thinks he might just take The Princess up on her offer to talk.

He finds her painting the walls of her room and humming another one of her songs to herself.

“Hey princess,” he called up to her. She looked down at him and broke out into a smile.

“Hey Varian, how have you been?” She asked.

“Eh, bad enough to talk,” he admitted. She nods in understanding, placing Pascal on the ground to go and play with Ruddiger.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“Just some things I've been peacing together.”

“Like?”

“What that girl could be.”

“Zhan Tiri,” Rapunzel interrupted.

“That sorcerer?”

“Yeah, she told me herself.”

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” He accused.

“Oh right, sorry.”

He sighed, “None of you told me anything when you got back.” Her eyes widened, her mouth opened like she was going to defend herself, and then softened. “Lesson one of staying friends with Cassie, let people talk and _listen_ to what they have to say.” He shuddered remembering when she had sent him out of the castle. Even if he now knew she had an entire kingdom to save and that it was half Nigel's fault, it still felt like she didn’t care what he had to say at the time.

“True,” she said, “But I think I learned lesson one a while ago and that's not to try too hard.” She smiled dreamily, remembering better days.

“Well lesson two then,” he suggested. They both nodded and giggled softly.

“Thank you, Varian,” she said.

“For what?”

“Helping me get Cass back.”

“I just wish I could have done more when I had the chance,” he admitted.

“Same.”

They sat in silence for a while, before Raps went to go and touch up a few of her paintings. She paused when she reached one of the more horrible ones, including chains and a wicked old woman. It was small, surrounded by more colourful paintings, and next to one of himself that he didn’t like looking at, so he had never looked at it closer than a glance

“No,” she said suddenly.

“No what?” He asked.

“She doesn’t look like Mother, she’s not too far gone yet,” she decided.

“Does have the whole kidnapping thing down though,” he said slightly bitterly.

“So did you, and look where you are now,” she said, picking up Pascal.

“Took taking over the kingdom though,” he reminded her.

“If that's what it has to take to get her back, then what can we do?” She asked, smiling sadly.

“I can help you.”

“Thanks.”

“As long as you let me in on some things, and let me help.”

She nodded, “I promise.”

“Rule three, don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

Fin


End file.
